On Friday I blogged on how Charles Chauvel sent one or more e-mails out to lawyers asking them to send in letters to the Dominion Post praising him, and insulting a press gallery reporter who didn’t praise him enough in an article.

That was Part I of a three part series on the lengths Charles will go to, to bolster his image. Part III will be tomorrow.

For today, I want to focus on the Police video surveillance bill. Now I’m one of those on the record as having said I thought Labour and Chauvel did well to insist on a select committee process and get some changes to the bill. But there are some very interesting timings with the bill.

The Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures Bill) had its first reading on Tuesday 27 September, and was referred to select committee the same day. Submissions were due by end of Wednesday 28 September and it reported back on Monday 3 October 2011.

Now first a bit of a lesson on how select committees work. They generally first hear initial advice from officials in private, and then hear submissions from the public in public. After public hearings they meet and discuss the bill in private, go through any report from officials and signal potential amendments.

Inevitably the ranking Government members on the committee will brief one or more Ministers on the deliberations. They will outline the nature and tenor of the public submissions, the views of the Government members on the select committee and the views of the opposition members. They will discuss what changes the opposition wants, what changes they think are desirable and where a deal can be struck. The Government generally has the choice of either trying to pass it without co-operation from the Opposition, or compromising aspects to get wider agreement.

Now this sort of negotiation is always done in private. You need to give MPs room to explore compromises freely and frankly. This is fundamental to the success of our select committee system. The Standing Orders actually make leaking deliberations a contempt, SO401(p):

divulging the proceedings or the report of a select committee or a subcommittee contrary to Standing Orders

And the Speaker in Speakers Ruling 187/4 has noted:

The deliberations of the members of a committee and any draft report are not available for release and any unauthorised disclosure of them is a breach of privilege. This is not a mere technical rule. It is essential, if members are to work well together on a committee, that the integrity of the process be maintained by respecting each other’s confidences. Furthermore, the House is entitled to the first advice of the conclusions of one of its committees in a report rather than individual members of the committee taking it upon themselves to communicate committee decisions to individual journalists.

That was Speaker Kidd in 1997 talking about the importance of integrity in the process. Speaker Grey in 1993 in SR 187/3 noted:

Parliamentary privilege exists to protect the integrity of the parliamentary process. In that process members of select committees deliberate amongst themselves on the evidence that they have heard, and draw up a report to the House that embodies their conclusions. This process is seriously undermined if drafts that are to be submitted to the committee for inclusion in its report can, with impunity, be released to all and sundry …

It is one thing for members to say in advance of a select committee meeting that they intend to argue for inclusion of a particular point of view in the committee’s report. That is quite acceptable. But it is another thing altogether for members to draw up a document that purports to embody the views of a minority on a select committee—views that are clearly put forward as those members’ contribution to the drafting of the committee’s report—and that are in fact subsequently laid before the committee.

Such a document is clearly one that should be conveyed to the committee first, so that it can consider it in its deliberations. To release it prior to its consideration could pre-empt deliberation and prejudice the proper functioning of the select committee process. Anything that has a tendency to prejudice the select committee process can be regarded as a contempt of the House.

Essentially this says a member of a select committee can express a public view before deliberations begin, but not during deliberations.

Now I want people to focus on two press releases by Charles Chauvel. The first was issued at 4 pm on Thu 29 September, and set out four bottom lines for tthe bill to proceed:

Having heard the evidence, Labour now sets out its position on the Bill and the amendments that National will be required to agree if it is to have Labour support to pass the House next week:

And five days later Chauvel puts out a further release:

Charles Chauvel said the Bill made the four major changes that Labour required in setting out its bottom lines last Thursday following the hearing of evidence in the select committee.

So the narrative from Charles is the brave Labour Party setting down their four bottom lines, holding fast to them, and forcing the Government to agree to them.

There are two issues here. The first is that the first press release from Chauvel was done after deliberations had started on the bill. It is a clear breach of privilege. The House has risen so it is not possible to have a complaint considered by this Parliament and anyway amazingly Chauvel is actually Chair of the Privileges Committee.

But undermining the integrity of the select committee process is only part of Chauvel’s efforts to promote himself. The actual truth is even more incredible.

I understand the press release from Chauvel setting out Labour’s four bottom lines was done around 60 minutes after Chauvel had been briefed on what changes the Government had agreed to. He already knew the Government’s position when he wrote that press release.

So you may ask yourself what sort of MP would breach standing orders just so they can put out a press release laying down bottom lines on a confidential negotiation, when they already knew what had been agreed to? One obsessed with making himself look good is the answer. There is a pattern here.

Note this blog post where Chauvel complains:

We saved the right to silence, and stopped the Government from being able to try people in absentia.  We got the usual level of credit – none –  from the media, and from left-wing commentators. …

If we get legislation that complies with the four points I just summarised, the Nats will have lost big time in a major attempt to interfere with our human rights.  And it won’t be because MPs from a couple of minor parties stood clear of the debate and held their noses.  It will be because Labour pushed the envelope as far as possible given the numbers in the House.  In most democracies, that would be regarded as a pretty significant achievement given the right:left imbalance in Parliament right now.  Here, expect us to get the usual level of credit.  Ah well.

Now recall that when he writes about how National will have lost big time, and how it is unfair he doesn’t get enough credit for stopping them, he already knew what the Government had agreed to, and his four bottom lines were released after he had been told what had been agreed to.

It’s the sort of thing you would expect from someone who, well, writes letters to the editor praising himself and asks others to send it in, in their name.

Part III tomorrow.

The Press reports:

Schoolchildren will be asked to help fill the roles of Christchurch support staff facing job losses, a support staff worker says. …

“In one case, a librarian has lost her job, a part-time position will be created and that person will be assisted in the library by students,” she said. “Our students go to school to learn and receive a quality education, not to work in the library because there is not enough funding in the school to provide a librarian.”

Well at my secondary school, several dozen students helped out in the school library. Far from stopping us from receiving a quality education, it enhances our education. You got to learn more about how the library worked, got to read more books and also a degree of responsibility.

Being a good geek, I ended up Head Librarian in my final year. We had a gap of several months between staff librarians, so us students ran the library for an extended period of time. It was a great experience in learning adult responsibility.

I love this speech by UK PM David Cameron, especially the part on education:

That starts with a good education – for everyone. It sounds so simple: proper teaching, good discipline, rigorous exams. But it’s hard. It’s hard because our education system has been infected by an ideology that instead of insisting on every child’s success has too often made excuses for failure. They said: “poor kids can’t learn.” “Black boys can’t do well.” “In this community we really mustn’t expect too much – don’t you understand?”

Oh yes, I do understand. Believe me I do understand and I am disgusted by the idea that we should aim for any less for a child from a poor background than a rich one. I have contempt for the notion that we should accept narrower horizons for a black child than a white one. Yes it’s the age-old irony of the liberal left: they practice oppression and call it equality.

What a superb line.

In Britain today, we have schools that are intolerant of failure, where ninety percent of pupils get five good GCSEs. Yes: private schools. You’ve heard me talk about social responsibility so let me say this. I want to see private schools start Academies, and sponsor Academies in the state system. Wellington College does it, Dulwich does it – others can too. The apartheid between our private and state schools is one of the biggest wasted opportunities in our country today. So let it be this party that helps tear it down.

What a novel idea – allow private schools to sponsor state schools.

Rigour back in learning. Standards back in schools. Teachers back in control. Yes – the Conservatives are back in government.

We can’t have standards can we.

Clare Curran blogs:

Martyn Bomber Bradbury has been banned from Radio NZ  for criticising John Key.

That’s not quite the case, even though it is how Labour wants it reported.

First of all I should make my position clear. I think Bradbury’s bombastic style is extremely good at motivating partisans and activists of the left, but I don’t think it exactly appeals to so called swinging voters. In fact I suspect such rhetoric actually turns such voters in the opposite direction to the left.

So I’m actually all in favour of Bradbury being on the air as much as possible. Hell give him Labour’s 20 minute opening address. In fact I’d give him his own radio show, even his own entire frequency.

So did Radio NZ really biff him just for criticising the PM? I suggest people listen to the the Media Watch item (start at 26 minutes).

They cite several issues, namely:

1. Bradbury spoke over the host and wouldn’t let him get a word in
2. His rant against the Prime Minister was word for word taken from his blog post
3. Previous contributions to the show were recitals from his blog posts
4. His rant was against RNZ’s broadcasting standards

As I said, I’ll be delighted if Bradbury is on air as much as possible so I’m not defending Radio NZ’s decision, I’m just pointing out that Mediawatch did not say Bradbury was kicked off for criticising the PM – they cited all those issues above. Also there is a difference between criticising the Prime Minister and accusing him of corruption.

I’m also a regular guest on RNZ Afternoons Panel. As far as I can tell there are 40 – 50 panelists and you tend to end up on around once a month. The format is that Jim and the producers set most of the topics, and you nominate two items. At just after 4 pm you talk about what you have been up to lately and around 4.30 pm you talk about an issue that you nominate. You are meant to indicate these to the producers in advance of the show.

Different guests approach the show in different ways. For what it is worth, here is my approach:

1. The show is a discussion, not a rant. Listeners are expecting a three way or four way (when we interview someone) discussion on topics.
2. I never prepare notes in advance. I will think about topics in my head but always just speak unscripted
3. I try to be relatively balanced. I’ve often been critical of the Government on a specific issue on the show. Of course as someone with centre-right views, this reflects what I say.
4. I try not to be too political. Many of the items I choose to talk about are not political. I talk about travel a lot!
5. Even though you get to set the topic for “your issue” I still see it as starting a topic for the whole panel to discuss. You have your initial say, but hopefully it leads to a discussion between you, Jim and the other panelist on the issue.
6. In keeping with the discussion theme, I will sometimes jump in and offer my 2c on issues put up by the other panelists, or even with guests Jim is interviewing. Being in a different studio can make this sometime difficult to pull off, so you only do it if you think your question or comment is relevant, or at least funny.
7. Disagreements are fine, but are best done in a respectful manner. I try to identify the aspects I agree with someone on, and then point out the parts where I disagree.
8. Radio New Zealand is not the same as a blog podcast. I use different styles for different mediums.
9. I enjoy going on with people with different world views such as (recently) Brian Edwards, and discovering how much we may agree on, and the areas we don’t.
10. Occasionally the other panelist has been someone who makes me look like a bleeding heart pinko liberal. This frightens me and amuses me in around equal proportions 🙂

Since going on The Panel, I’m amazed at the number of people who tell me they have heard me on it. Several taxi drivers have recognised me purely from my voice alone, as I give them directions. Radio NZ don’t publish ratings, but as far as I can tell it must rate pretty well.

Whale Oil has a photo of Andrew Little leading a protest on Lambton Quay. Wow he must be super-confident of his chances in New Plymouth, if he has time to campaign in Wellington.

It’s not even clear if Andrew is a full-time candidate. Most candidates who want to win a seat off an incumbent will spent six to nine months working full-time in the seat. The EPMU website lists Andrew as remaining on the staff, as special counsel. I presume that takes up a bit of time also.

Or maybe Andrew is positioning himself for a by-election in Wellington, such as Rongotai or Hutt South?

Wow that first half against Argentina had me worried. The final score was somewhat generous to us. Kudos to Argentina for a great game, and exposing the areas where the All Blacks need to close their vulnerabilities.

The atmosphere for the All Blacks v Wallabies semi-final will I am sure be every part as intense as the actual final.

For the other semi-final I imagine there will be 50,000 or so Kiwis who discover some distant Welsh ancestry and cheer them on against France.

The hopeful and likely final is New Zealand vs France. In one sense a nightmare as we have often crashed at their hands in the RWC, but on the other hand we thrashed them in pool play, and have shown we can have their measure.

Joanne Carroll in the Herald:

The figures make sobering reading. Last year, 134 New Zealand children aged 10 to 14 caught chlamydia. The figure leapt to an alarming 3203 in the 15- to 19-year age group with the infection after contracting it from their mothers.

Really? 3,203 teenage girls caught chlamydia from their mothers?

Were they all from Inglewood?

The Electoral Commission has announced that the Conservative Party is now registered and able to contest the election.

There are now 16 registered parties being:

• ACT
• ALCP
• Progressive
• Conservative
• Libertarianz
• Mana
• Maori
• New Citizen
• Winston First
• Labour
• Alliance
• Greens
• Kiwi
• Democrats/Social Credit
• National
• United

I suspect Progressive and Kiwi will not actually contest the election and urge people to vote Labour and Conservative respectively.

A feisty column by Deborah Coddington:

I wouldn’t like to live next door to Nicky Hager. I sense, from his pontifications about New Zealand’s involvement in Afghanistan, that if he was my neighbour and my family was attacked, Hager would decline to get involved.

As well as other peaceniks, isolationists and John Minto-adoring surrender monkeys, I’d be left to fight my own battles. My fate would be packaged as “Other People’s Wars”.

Simplistic analogy, comparing domestic crime with international wars, civil or otherwise – do we turn our backs when viciousness is perpetrated against human beings just because they happen to live hundreds of thousands of miles away?

I presume the “surrender monkeys” were also against the NATO intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo, despite the fact it saved tens of thousands of lives, and the territories are now relatively stable.

Imogen Neale in the SST reports:

Teachers and parents are calling on the government to cap class sizes, despite a leading academic saying it’s not the size of the class but what you do with it that matters.

The Post Primary Teachers’ Association contends the Ministry of Education’s staffing formula disadvantages larger schools and puts them under pressure to have classes with more than 30 students.

It’s trying to make it an election issue and is pushing the ministry to reintroduce limits.

The PPTA would not specify an ideal size but the Sunday Star-Times understands it’s around 25. A Star-Times readers poll found that parents’ preferred class size was 15 to 24.

As reported above, the scientific research has found that class size has a minimal impact on learning outcomes, and the quality of the teacher has a major outcome.

Honorary Auckland University education professor John Hattie said this year that size was “irrelevant”.

“I’m not a fan of whether it’s 15, whether it’s 30, or whether it’s 60. We’ve proved that New Zealand has some of the best teachers in the world in classes of 25 to 30, so why are we worrying about class size?”

He was responding to reports of a British school teaching children in classes of up to 70.

We’d probably do better if we sacked the bottom 20% of teachers, and gave their salaries to the top 20% in return for taking on their classes also!

Well they were two enjoyable quarter-finals. I was hoping Ireland would win against Wales, but Wales totally deserved the win – the best I have seen them play this tournament.

And oh it was wonderful to see France smash England. My only concern is that if we play France in the final, they might beat us!

France have to be favoured to beat Wales in their semi-final. We’ll plunge into recession if we don’t beat Argentina to make the other semi. The big unknown is whether we’ll be facing Australia or South Africa. I’m not even sure yet who to cheer for. Normally I subscribe to the “anyone playing Australia” theory but I have to say it would be good to have the Boks eliminated.

Nick Venter has an interesting interview with Rodney Hide.

Clio Francis at Stuff reports:

For the first time since the Depression, the prison population has shown a sustained drop – and is on track to tumble further.

In the past decade the prison population grew by 45.6 per cent – but the latest annual Justice Sector Forecast predicts that in the next 10 years it will fall by 6.2 per cent.

The decrease is being attributed to a falling crime rate and to new police tactics that have seen fewer people brought before the courts.

Corrections Department spokesman Brendan Anstiss said: “There are ups and down in the forecast each year and each month, but in modern history this is the first sustained drop.

So long as serious and repeat offenders are jailed, to keep the community safe, I’m all for having fewer people in prison.

Corrections Minister Judith Collins said the falling crime and prison population rates were a “dramatic drop”.

“The people who should be in prison are in prison, but we don’t want low-level offenders in prison if there is a better way of dealing with them. It’s a very expensive option and we know that the younger they are when they end up in prison the more likely they are to stay there for a very long time.

It will be great if the three strikes law actually leads to less people in prison, because of a deterrence effect.

I blogged at Stuff around two weeks ago how the Greens were in danger of being seen as an astro-turfing party. Of course the usual suspects denounced me and ignored the unethical behaviour of the Greens in this regard.

It has now come back to bite them, with their astro-turfing on Reddit being slammed by a moderator. Reddit is one of the most popular sites on the Internet.

A Reddit reader has posted screen shots of the Greens “alerts” mechanism, where you can see which posts they are being alerted to and encouraged to interfere with. They are here, here and here.

The moderator posted:

This is not cool. In fact, it’s utterly disingenuous and really sucks.

I (and the other mods) are happy for (any and all) political parties to have a presence on reddit – particularly as we lead up to an election. We’re very happy that people want to chat about politics and things they care about. We’re very very happy that we’ve had politicians do AMA’s on the site. This is great, and part of what makes /r/nz great.

HOWEVER, these drive-by posts pimping the Green Party are one very small step above spamming. These will be removed and the people doing it will be banned when we find them. I’ve already banned 3 accounts that I’ve spotted doing this. Note that we will not be banning anyone who expresses a political opinion – as long as you’re an active member of the reddit community. If you’re here to gain “stars” on the Green Party website, then you’re not welcome.

Everyone else, if you spot any astro-turfing asshats, then report the comment or send one of the mods a message. Please don’t report people who just disagree with you, or are fans of a political party you disagree with, but those who are just here to promote a viewpoint (e.g. they signed up today to post one comment that says “political party A is great!”).

Some of the comments are interesting also, coming from their own supporters. LordDavethe7th:

Act on Campus blog:

On Q+A this week…

Maori make up only around 15% of New Zealand’s population, but account for more than half our prison inmates. Is this down to poverty, higher rates of offending or, as Maori Party co-Leader Dr Pita Sharples claims, a systemic bias against Maori? Dr Sharples makes his case to Guyon Espiner live in our Auckland studio.

Then, Labour Party finance spokesperson David Cunliffe has been highly critical of National’s performance in light of New Zealand’s recent credit downgrade – but what would Labour do if elected to power?

Finally, with a referendum soon to decide the future of our voting system, two MPs debate their personal views on the merits and failings of MMP. Like John Key, National MP Simon Bridges favours a change to a Supplementary Member system, while Labour’s Lianne Dalziel backs the status quo.

Joining Dr Jon Johansson on the panel are former Waitakere Mayor and Labour Party President Bob Harvey and former NZ First MP and Carterton Mayor Ron Mark.

Q+A, 9-10am Sundays on TV ONE. Repeats at 9.10pm Sundays, 9:05am and 1:05pm Mondays on TVNZ 7

This is belated as I have been travelling, but I have to mark the premature death of this great man.

Wired.com has one of the extensive biographies. Some extracts:

Steven Paul Jobs, 56, died Wednesday at his home with his family. The co-founder and, until last August, CEO of Apple Inc was the most celebrated person in technology and business on the planet. No one will take issue with the official Apple statement that “The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.”  …

His accomplishments were unmatched. People who can claim credit for game-changing products — iconic inventions that become embedded in the culture and answers to Jeopardy questions decades later — are few and far between. But Jobs has had not one, not two, but six of these breakthroughs, any one of which would have made for a magnificent career. In order: the Apple II, the Macintosh, the movie studio Pixar, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad.

My first computer was an Apple IIe. And I was the last person in Parliament to have a Macintosh as my work computer.

After his call to Packard, Jobs worked at HP as a teenager. He later had a job at Atari, when the video-game company was just getting started. Yet he did not see the field as something that would satisfy his artistic urges. “Electronics was something I could always fall back on when I needed food on the table,” he once told me.

That changed when Steve Jobs saw what a high-school friend, Steve Wozniak, was doing. Wozniak was a member of the Homebrew Computer Club, a collection of Valley engineers and hangers-on who were thrilled at the prospect of personal computers, which had just become possible with the advent of low-cost chips and electronics. “Woz” was among several of the group who designing their own, but he had no desire to commercialize his project, even though it was groundbreaking in simplicity and also was one of the first to include color graphics.

I met Steve Wozniak when he came over to Wellington as a guest of the Wellington Apple Users Group, which he was patron of. One of WAUG’s co-founders was a school mate of mine, Grant Collison. Grant was in the 4th form when he helped form it, and off memory was the one who cheekily invited Woz to be the patron, and all were impressed when he accepted.

I have many fond memories of Grant’s massive collection of 5.25″ discs with various games and software. He was our generation’s version of Bit Torrent 🙂

In October 2001, Apple introduced a music player, the iPod. It broke ground as the first successful pocket-size digital music player. Because Jobs had a tremendous ability to locate and hire brilliant talent, his team produced it in less than a year. The process is indicative of the way Apple ran. Though Jobs could be overwhelming in pushing his point, he understood that ultimately, his products would not work if their best ideas were discarded. In the case of the iPod, hardware designer Tony Fadell knew how to get his best prototype approved by Jobs — he showed his boss three different designs, with one clearly superior, to give Jobs a chance to berate two efforts before saying, “That’s more like it!” with the last.

Sometimes, Jobs would dig in and only back down when the marketplace spoke. Again, the iPod was an example. Originally, he felt that the iPod should only work with Macintosh’s computers. But its instant popularity led him to agree with some of his employees who had been arguing for a Windows version. When iPod became available to the entire population, it really took off. Apple has sold over 300 million iPods.

Thanks Steve for my Apple IIe, for my many Macs, for my iPod and my iPad.

In my Herald column I note the final sitting day of the 49th Parliament and look forward to the elections for the 50th Parliament, in 50 days time. I make some early predictions as to which parties will and will not be back.

One of my legion of spies has passed on a very interesting e-mail. It was sent to a lawyer asking them to send a letter to the editor of the Dominion Post. The headers are:

Date: Sun, Sep 25, 2011 at 1:44 AM
Subject: Hoping you would be comfortable with something like this to the Dompost – if not, let’s discuss
To: [email protected]

And the text of the letter that the sender wanted sent to the Dom Post was:

Sir

We are lawyers/I am a lawyer practising in Auckland who are/is not aligned to any political party.  We were/I was extremely concerned about Simon Power’s assault on the right to silence – and other fundamental liberties – and so we involved ourselves/I involved myself in the debate and the lobbying effort to reverse those changes.

We were/ I was, frankly, amazed to read Andrea Vance’s opinion piece in your newspaper on Saturday.  Her account of what really happened here is completely off-beam.

Labour’s Justice Spokesperson, Charles Chauvel, authored a stout defence of the right to silence in a minority report when the Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill came back to Parliament.

His work picked up on significant concerns raised during the submission process.  Rodney Hide and John Boscawen took a long, hard look at the Bill in light of these concerns, and were instrumental in ensuring that ACT re-examined its position on the legislation.

Chauvel, along with his caucus, and Hide and Boscawen, are the MPs who merit credit in this process.  We/I have found them willing to examine the arguments for and against reform, and to work patiently, often behind the scenes, to reject the extremes in the argument and bring National around to a position that works going forward.

In contrast, Simon Power, Christopher Finlayson, Hilary Calvert, Peter Dunne and other government-aligned MPs have pretty much toed the party line, failing to do what we/I expect of our parliamentarians – examine legislation dispassionately and in light of the evidence.

Parliament is likely to pass criminal procedure reform in the next fortnight.  It won’t be perfect law by any means.  But thanks to Chauvel, and to Hide and Boscawen, it will be much better than it otherwise would have been.

Maybe your newspaper should get a reporter who understands the law to report on it from now on.

Yours sincerely
etc

So who sent the e-mail requesting this letter be sent in by a friendly lawyer. Well the headers also reveal that:

From: Charles Chauvel <[email protected]>

Charles must have been stewing all day about the story, as he sent the e-mail at 1.44 am. I’m not sure what is more amusing – the shameless self-promotion, or the attack on the reporter. I wonder if he had the guts to say it to their face, rather than get someone else to write in on his behalf, using his supplied words.

Residents of Ohariu should think carefully about the values they want in their MP.